Comments on Amitai Etzioni, The Common good and rights

Abstract

Professor Etzioni, ladies and gentlemen, Thank you very much for inviting me to be a discussant here today. I consider myself a friend of the communitarian cause, although sometimes a critical friend. So it is an honour for me to discuss a public lecture, delivered by the founding father of the communitarian movement. In his lecture professor Etzioni argues that there should be two sources of normativity: individual rights on the one hand and the common good on the other. A lot of political philosophy is about individual rights: a right to free speech, a right to privacy, a right to choose or reject a religion, a right to be able to use one’s native language, a right to choose a marriage partner, a right to welfare, a right to education etcetera.